Ten years ago, Java was the next big thing. It had portability and was purely object oriented, both of which were needed at the time. Today I found an article discussing Sun’s recent acquisition of two Python developers. Their main goal is making Python work on the JVM. This go me thinking, is Java trying to play catch-up to .NET?
Don’t get my wrong, I know Java is a very widely used platform, but what has really changed in the past few years with Java? I might just be ignorant on the matter, but I haven’t heard of much. .NET on the other hand seems to be the face paced new comer when it comes to platforms for development. The feature-set in .NET Framework 3.5 is quite simply amazing. Not to mention, it supports a multitude of languages, soon to be including Python and Ruby.
But, I can’t entirely say I support .NET. The one thing that kills me is its ties to Windows. I know, Microsoft doesn’t have much of a reason to port it to other operating systems, but this gives Java a huge leg up. Even though Mono exists, it is barely keeping up with .NET Framework releases.
No matter which doctrine you subscribe to, competition is a good thing and will only make each platform better. I look forward to watching both closely over the next few years.
To all my Java and Linux friends, feel free to leave flaming comments.